There are just too many things that are not the way they ought to be, and I don’t like it! Are you with me? There are too many things going on that should not be going on, and when I hear about them or experience them, it disturbs me. I don’t like the brokenness I see in this world.
Earthquakes devastate Haiti and shake Chile – over 150 aftershocks in a country that, if you look at it on the map, appears to be sliding into the Pacific Ocean anyway. I wish that were not happening. I do not like that, do you?
Members of Congress, governors, City Council members, other leaders are exposed for stealing from public funds or cheating on their spouses or just plain nastiness, and I think that’s wrong. I think that’s distasteful. It’s out of order. I’m pretty sure you think that too. I do not like what is happening in our broken world.
And then there is the church, that safe haven, that place of spiritual comfort, that holy people unto the Lord; but when I read about the church I read about pedophile pastors, devious deacons, and fundamentalist phonies frothing at the mouth with mindless negativity! Even the church, sometimes, is among the things not to like in my world; even in the church injustice happens and people get hurt.
There are too many things that are not the way they ought to be, and I don’t like it, not one bit. I do not like brokenness. I do not like disasters. I do not like cheats and liars. I read somewhere that God hates and judges evil. Are you with me?
Ah, but wait. It just may be that you and I are a part of all that brokenness. It just may be that you and I are also out of order. There may be an issue with us, too. Nature is raw, leaders corrupt, the churches flawed; but Jesus, in our text this morning, will not let us go off on everybody else. He insists on our paying attention to our own hearts and reading our own motives. "Unless you repent, you will all perish as they did."
Everybody in Jerusalem knew about certain horrifying current events, every bit as distasteful as the ones we experience. There had been an egregious case of leadership lapse; Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, had mingled the blood of some Galileans with their sacrifices – in other words, he had not only executed some of Jesus’ countrymen, but had also seen to it that that human blood was mingled with the blood of sacrificial animals on the Temple altar. Not only cruelty but also blasphemy.
Now I would guess that some people thought that these Galileans deserved their punishment; others thought that it was most unjust. But Jesus went another direction altogether; Jesus said that whether these folks were better or worse than anyone else was beside the point. They perished; and so will we all, unless we repent. That makes me squirm; how about you?
And then an undeserved disaster, the collapse of the Tower of Siloam, thought to be one of the sixty or so towers in the old city wall, perhaps also a part of the water system. We know almost nothing about the incident, but it must have been fresh on people’s minds. Eighteen people killed when a wall collapsed. Did those eighteen people deserve to die? Probably some thought so; we always find ways to blame victims. But if they deserved to die, then so did the 800 Chileans caught in the earthquake! Or the more than 200,000 Haitians wiped out by that disaster! You and I want to scream out to high heaven, "No, no, no, it’s unfair." "Pat Robertson, shut your foolish mouth." They did not deserve to die, and we would like for Jesus to explain the injustice. But about the eighteen who died at Siloam Jesus only says, "Unless you repent, you will all perish as they did."
What ever does that mean? Small comfort in that word. There are just too many things that are not the way they ought to be, we don’t like it, and Jesus speaks to us only of our repentance, of our need to turn around. Are we a part of the problem? Are you and I, reasonably good, ordinary middle-of-the-road law-abiding citizens – are we out of order too?
So Jesus then moves on beyond the shock and dismay we feel about His repentance command and tells a parable, the parable of the vineyard owner who planted a fig tree. The fig tree sat there and did nothing for three years, and the owner wanted to cut it down. But the gardener asked for one more year, just one more chance, to see if it would bear fruit. Next year, no fruit, we cut it down. Unless you repent, you will also perish. A word that is hard to hear; but, in the midst of a world full of unpleasant experiences, disastrous moments, and unjust corruption, a word you and I need to hear.
I
You see, the fig tree was a failure. It was a failure. It did not do what fig trees are supposed to do. It sat there for three perfectly good years in all its lush figginess but it produced nothing. It was a failure; it did exactly zero.
And the issue, brothers and sisters, with many of us is that we have decided that the best way for us to get by is to do nothing. To attempt nothing, venture nothing, risk nothing. We have determined that failure is perfectly acceptable. We will think no great thoughts, we will venture no great adventures, we will sing no new songs, we will learn no new lessons, we will work no wonderful works. We will just sit here and wait until death overtakes us.
And they will be able to say of us, "He made no huge mistakes, he committed no crimes, he told no lies." They will be able to say that of us because we have tried nothing. We are failures. Nice, neat, risk-free failures. But Jesus calls failures to repent, or else they will perish.
Every one who has been around this Baptist crowd a while knows the story of William Carey, the father of modern missions. But it’s worth the retelling. William Carey was a shoemaker, cobbling away at his bench in England. Carey became persuaded that God had laid before him and his Christian brothers and sisters the necessity of a missionary effort toward the whole world. So Carey began to prepare himself for such a venture; among other things, he taught himself the Hebrew, French, Dutch, and Italian languages, all while working on shoes!
Perhaps you know the famous account of Carey’s presentation before a ministers’ meeting, during which he made the case for the missionary effort. His eloquence received only the chilling response of one J. R. Ryland, "Young man, sit down; when God pleases to convert the heathen He will do it without your aid or mine." The strategy was to do nothing, keep it safe, sit tight. Just leave things alone, Mr. Carey. Failure. Failure because they would attempt nothing at all.
Oh, brothers and sisters, how easy it is to fall into the trap of being a pretty fig tree, sitting out in the garden, doing nothing. Keeping ourselves unspotted from the world. Never stole, never lied, never murdered, never committed adultery; but what DO we do? What positive contribution to the Kingdom DO we make? Merely to keep out of trouble and to live a quiet disengaged life – is that what the Lord asks of us? Is that all there is? Unless you repent …
Some of us need to repent of our disengaged lives, in which there are no great moments of victory because no great issues have been joined, no battles have been undertaken. Some of us must repent of our easy, stress-free lives; it’s the failure that looks so innocent, but it’s avoiding the Kingdom’s work not to put ourselves out there. The failure that plays it safe and tries nothing daring. The failure that William Carey countered with his great life motto, "Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God."
And I will tell you that unless we do attempt great things for God, we are like that flimsy fig tree, living in a lovely garden, safe and secure from all alarms, but utterly irrelevant. Unless we repent and attempt great things for God, we shall be failures, and must perish.
II
But it is not just that the fig tree was dormant, not just that it seemed to do nothing but sit there; more particularly, it was that the fig tree in Jesus’ parable was fruitless. It produced nothing of value. It may have looked good, it may have grown in size and stature. But a fig tree is supposed to be about figs. This one was fruitless.
I’ve argued that failures are failures because they do nothing. But equally dangerous is not only that we do nothing, but rather that we do all sorts of things, but they are the wrong things. We put our energies into things that do not matter, into causes that have no significance. It is easy indeed to stay busy, busy, busy, and still to be fruitless. And, as Jesus’ vineyard owner said about his fruitless fig tree, "Why should it be wasting the soil? Cut it down." "Unless you repent, you will all perish as they did."
You know, it is astonishing, the things to which people will give themselves. People will pursue all sorts of goals. There are people who are collectors, for example, and who will spend countless hours and sacks of money to acquire something for their collections of postage stamps or art works or matchbooks or beer bottles, whatever. These things become an all-consuming passion – just have to have that one unattainable item! But what do you have when you have it? What does it matter?
As for me, I am "collecting" ancestors. I have been bitten by the genealogy bug. Finding out the names and dates of ancestors as far back as the 15th Century has fascinated me. I have subscribed to Ancestry.com, I have bought a couple of books, I have purchased some magazine subscriptions, and I even traveled to Kentucky and Indiana to find and photograph gravesites. And when Margaret and I last went to England, we looked at half the graves in the cemetery of Sittingbourne to find her family members. So it’s all now compiled in a website, with photographs and names and dates and a family tree that still needs lots of filling in, but I’m working on it. And when it is all done, what will I have? What will it mean? I will have a website, with photographs and names and dates and a family tree that will always need lots of filling in, since the number of ancestors doubles every generation! It will never stop! A pleasant hobby, a nice distraction, nothing inherently wrong with it; but what is it really worth? What contribution does it make to the world’s needs?
The things to which we give ourselves, spending time and money and effort and emotion, but which make no difference in the end – that is fruitlessness. That is the kind of fig tree that the vineyard in Jesus’ parable was growing – good to see, lovely in its promise, fragrant in its blossoming. But no fruit, nothing that would nourish anyone, nothing that would feed a shrunken stomach or a hungry heart. Fruitless. Unless you repent …
The older some of us become, the more we need to repent our fruitlessness. The years go by and what have we produced that will matter? Did we give anyone the benefit of our wisdom? Did we reach out to anyone in need and get him over the threshold? Did we create anything that will nourish anyone? The older some of us become, the more we are going to hear with all of its ringing certainty, about our fruitless frivolities, "Unless you repent, you will all perish as they did."
Some fig trees are failures, for they never even attempt to do anything. And some fig trees are fruitless, for they produce leaves and foliage and stalks and all sorts of things other than the nourishing fruit they are intended to produce. And the vineyard owner speaks ominously about cutting them down and throwing them out.
III
But, praise God, there is yet hope. There is yet possibility. For to the vineyard owner, angry about the failure and the fruitless fig tree, and wanting to cut it down and throw it away – to him comes the plea of the gardener, "Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'" Master, one more chance, please, one more season, and then it may flourish. It has failed, it is fruitless, but if by your forbearance you can give one more chance, then it may flourish.
Oh, brothers and sisters, this is indeed a broken world, in which things happen that you and I do not like. But this broken world is also one in which a broken spirit and a contrite heart the Lord will not despise.
This is indeed an unjust world, in which things happen that are not fair. But this is also a world in which the injustices we have permitted to persist are taken into the heart of God and are turned around.
This is indeed a failure world, where we have sat on our hands to do nothing, so that, like Little Jack Horner, we can sit in a corner and stick in our thumbs and pull out plums and pronounce, "What a good boy am I," leaving the rest of the world to its own demise. But that, we have found, is strangely unsatisfying. God has an answer to that.
This is indeed a fruitless world, where we can be busy, busy, busy, about all the things that seem positive, but produce nothing – believe me, I seem to have done nothing but go to meetings in my five weeks as Interim Executive of the D. C. Baptist Convention, and I wonder what those meetings are producing. Is my life becoming fruitless? God has an answer to that.
When we repent of our failures and venture forward to attempt bold things for Christ … when we repent of our fruitlessness and say "no" to unproductive busy-ness … when we repent of all of that and turn ourselves over to Him, we will become flourishing fig trees. We will grow, we will produce, we will be happy, we will flourish.
Even in this broken world, once we turn our backs on futility and embrace Christ, we will flourish. Even in this painful world, where people strive after the wind and never catch it, once we turn our backs on faulty frivolities that foster fruitlessness, we will flourish.
How do I know? What is the guarantee that we need not fail nor be fruitless, but may flourish? Just this: that the gardener Himself has laid down His very life for us … that He did the unthinkable, setting aside the glories of heaven and investing Himself in our tawdry earth, for us … that He did the unfathomable, reaching out to seek and to save us who were lost.
He did not leave us in faint failure. Nor did he abandon us to futile fruitlessness. He went to the Cross, He poured out His life, He fertilized us with His battered body and His spilled blood, and then He rose again. He rose to flourishing life. Jesus the Christ is neither failure nor fruitless. He is alive, He flourishes, and He promises us life in abundance.
There are just too many things that are not the way they ought to be, and I don’t like it! There are just too many things going on that should not be going on, and when I hear about them or experience them, it disturbs me. I don’t like the brokenness I see. But this one thing I know:
"You may build great cathedrals large or small,
You can build skyscrapers grand and tall,
You may conquer all the failures of the past,
But only what you do for Christ will last.
You may seek earthly power and fame,
The world might be impressed by your great name,
Soon the glories of this life will all be past,
But only what you do for Christ will last."
Unless we repent and give ourselves to Jesus Christ and His great cause, we will fail and we will be fruitless.
But wait, watch, repent, receive; and in the risen Christ we shall flourish.
